Читать книгу The House Of Allerbrook - Valerie Anand - Страница 22

Court life did of course have its good moments. Jane attended a tournament and marvelled at the immense horses and heavily armoured riders as they charged each other, separated by a brightly coloured barrier but reaching across it with lethal-looking lances. She also liked walking in the grounds with the Queen and enjoyed dancing when King Henry wasn’t there. When he was, he never failed to partner her at least once.

Peter Carew sometimes danced with her, which was much more agreeable, or strolled beside her when queen and courtiers went walking. It was from Peter that she learned that she was not imagining the unfriendly looks she kept receiving from the Duke of Norfolk.

“He saw before the wedding that this marriage was going to be a catastrophe,” Carew said. “And straightaway he started getting notions about his niece. The gossip is that he’d put her into Henry’s bed himself if he got the chance. As a mistress or even a wife, if Henry manages to get out of this toil he’s in—and he might, from all I hear.”

Jane had heard the same thing, mainly from Hanna, who sometimes, worriedly, talked to the English ladies.

“The king sometimes sleeps in her chamber,” Hanna had said, “but all he does is kiss her good-night, and then kiss her good-morning and leave her. On the first night he fumbled about in a way she did not like, but from what she says, it came to naught and he doesn’t do even that now. She says she hopes for children, but, poor soul, she does not know how children are made. We do not tell her, for that is for the King to do. Besides, it is no use for her to know—things—if he will not do his part. We are anxious for her.”

It seemed to Jane that the few happy occasions would always be overshadowed by things that were not happy at all. The miserable royal marriage was one of these. Her homesickness was another and she was made uncomfortable by Dorothy’s obvious resentment because the king never solicited her hand in dancing. Carew didn’t either. Dorothy, in fact, was a wallflower.

Matters worsened rapidly when the court moved upstream to London and Whitehall Palace for the May Day celebrations.

It was Jane’s first experience of the strange mixture of order and chaos which was King Henry’s court on the move. Instructions were exact. All personal belongings must be clearly labelled. Porters would take everything to the barges that were to transport baggage to Whitehall. Only the most important people could take furniture and bedding and hangings; the rest must accept what they found awaiting them at the other end.

Jane made sure that her goods were carefully labelled, but Lisa panicked slightly at the idea of their things being borne away to be piled up in the barge with other hampers and bundles, and prayed aloud that nothing would get lost or broken. However, the journey, though chilly, was accomplished without incident. But when the maids of honour had been shown to their new dormitory and the baggage was brought in, Jane’s biggest hamper wasn’t there.

“Oh, madam, I knew something would go wrong with your things. I knew it!” wailed Lisa.

“Well, it isn’t your fault,” Jane said soothingly. “Or mine, either,” she added, frowning. “My brother painted my name on all my hampers and boxes before I left home and I stuck two labels on each piece of luggage, as well. I begged some glue from the Greencloth room. They keep it so that the kitchen staff can mend pots and pans and so on. Look, you can see them on the other things. I can’t understand it.”

Appealed to, Mistress Lowe said there was a room where unlabelled baggage was put until it was claimed, but when Jane and Lisa followed her directions, with difficulty, since Whitehall was a tangled maze of courtyards and separate buildings, they found that the room was now part of an extended Greencloth office and no one seemed to know where mislaid baggage had been stowed. A little later Peter Carew, finding Lisa and Jane down on the landing stage distractedly peering around, asked what they were about.

“I wondered if a hamper of mine had been left here by mistake,” Jane said. “It hasn’t been brought to our dormitory.”

“There’s a room where unidentified luggage is put,” said Carew comfortingly. “Come. I’ll show you.”

“We’ve been there,” said Jane. “But it’s being used for something else—there are clerks in it.”

“I don’t mean that one, I mean the new one. It’s been changed. No one ever remembers to tell anyone anything in this court! Details are always going wrong. Come with me.”

He led them to the right place, and the missing hamper was there. “The labels must have been torn off by accident, madam,” Lisa said. “I saw the way the porters just toss things about. Disgraceful, it is.”

“But both labels have come off—and they’ve been ripped off,” said Jane, examining the hamper. “There are just scraps of them left, and look! Someone’s splashed something over the place where Francis painted my name. It’s been covered over by—well, it looks like ink.”

“Is there someone at court who doesn’t like you, Mistress Sweetwater?” Carew asked, quite seriously.

“It’s a woman, if so,” said Lisa. “This is what spiteful women do. And I can put a name to the hussy, as well!”

“Leave it,” said Jane. “Let’s just take the hamper to the dormitory and not speak of this. I’ve got my property back. Master Carew, I must thank you for your help.”

“I’m always willing to assist a young lady in distress,” Carew said. He added suddenly and cryptically, “Remember that. Especially if there is spitefulness about.”

He left them before Jane could ask him what he meant. She asked Lisa instead, as they were carrying the hamper into the empty dormitory. “I don’t understand,” she said in puzzlement.

“I do,” said Lisa. “And I can put a name to the girl who did it.”

“Who?”

Lisa opened her mouth to reply, but closed it as the door opened and Dorothy came in with her tirewoman Madge. “So you found your things after all,” said Dorothy rudely. “You ought to take more care with your labels. Fancy gluing them on so feebly that they just fall off.”

Madge, who was very partisan as far as her young mistress was concerned, turned away quickly, but not quickly enough to hide a sly, smug smile. Jane looked at Lisa, who nodded.

“Start the unpacking,” said Jane, and turned grimly to face Dorothy.

“I took every care. Most people tie their labels on, so how did you know I used glue? I didn’t announce it and you weren’t in the room when I was sticking them on. They were wrenched off deliberately and where my name was painted on the wicker, someone has blanked it out with ink. Now, I wonder who did that?”

Dorothy coloured but tossed her head. “It wasn’t me, if that’s what you mean.”

“No?”

“Oh, don’t put on such righteous, haughty airs! Just because the king and Master Carew both dance with you…”

“Dorothy, what in the world is the matter with you? You surely don’t care whether you dance with the king or not.” It was incredible to Jane that anyone could actually wish to be physically close to the malodorous Henry. “And you have a handsome man of your own. Aren’t you going to marry Ralph Palmer?”

“There’s an understanding. We’re not formally betrothed yet and if we ever do marry, Ralph Palmer will be marrying my dowry, not me,” Dorothy retorted. “If yours were bigger, he’d take you instead and he’d probably rather. I saw him looking at you sometimes on the way here.”

“Oh, Dorothy!” said Jane helplessly.

She worried about it all through the May Day celebrations, with their tournaments and masques. On the following day Queen Anna said to her, in her slow English, “Hanna has written…how to make a dish I like. It is like a cake made with rice and covered in…bread in tiny bits….”

“Crumbs?” said Jane.

“Yes, so. Crumbs. And fried and served with cold, sharp stewed apples. Very good. Hanna does not like talking…to English officials. Take this to the kitchen and explain. I wish it tomorrow at supper.”

I don’t like giving orders to officials, either, Jane thought, but orders from the queen must be obeyed. However, the White Stave she spoke to in the Greencloth room was not one of the overdignified ones and was kind enough to tell her a quicker way back to the queen’s apartments.

“Whitehall is confusing, I know. But—” he pointed through a window “—you can cut through that building there. It has a small council chamber downstairs and the king is in conference there now, but there is a staircase just inside the door and no one will mind if you go up one floor and walk through the upstairs gallery. At the far end is another staircase and you can go down to a courtyard. The side door to the queen’s lodging is just a few steps to your left.”

Jane was glad of the guidance, since the good May Day weather had now given way to rain. She found the building the White Stave had pointed out and went up to the gallery, a wide and handsome place with a long row of windows. Settles with arm-ends shaped like lions’ heads and crimson cushions with gold fringes strewn on the seats, stood here and there, and oak chests with gold-inlaid carvings were placed between the windows. Rain blew against the diamond-leaded panes and she was glad to be on the indoor side of them.

Then, as she was walking through the gallery, a figure she decidedly did not want to meet entered through a small door near the far end. The conference, presumably, was over. At any rate, King Henry had left it.

He had seen her. There was nothing to do but stand aside and curtsy. He seemed to be on his own and he looked angry. She kept her eyes down as he approached, hoping he would just walk past, but instead he stopped, stretched one of those beefy hands down, slipped it under her elbow and raised her.

“Mistress Jane! You’re a healing sight for a harassed man. My nobles! All hummings and hawings and protocol and…ah well, never mind. Come and cheer me for a little.” He led her to the nearest settle and she found herself obliged to sit on it beside him. His thick, powerful arm went around her.

“There is something you must know,” he said. “Something that I suspect all you ladies have guessed anyway. Queen Anna and I…are not more than friends. I am seeking a way to dissolve the union, without harming her. I wish her to be respected and provided for and treated as my sister—but we cannot go on pretending to be man and wife. Cromwell is making every possible difficulty, damn the man. Others, not you, will have the task of telling the queen, but I want you to know. Can you guess why?”

With that, the powerful arm tightened and turned her to face him, and the big square countenance came close and his mouth clamped itself over hers. She dared not struggle, but the feel of his fat tongue forcing its way into her own mouth made her want to retch. She controlled the urge with a gigantic effort as he nuzzled and sucked. He had been drinking wine and the taste was on his tongue. Secondhand wine, thought Jane wildly, was horrible. There were tears in her eyes. The whole ghastly business seemed to go on forever.

He let her go at last, but put a thick forefinger on one of her eyebrows and said, “Dear little Jane. Are these tears? Have I moved you so much?”

“I…I am overwhelmed,” Jane found herself stammering. She blurted out something else, about fearful majesty, and he laughed and began to fumble at her clothes. “Please,” said Jane. “Please…sir…Your Majesty…”

Rescue came, but not in an agreeable form. She had been longing for it, but would have preferred it not to come in the shape either of the Duke of Norfolk or Thomas Cromwell. They, however, were both in the group of men who now followed Henry into the gallery and came striding toward them. Norfolk’s expression as he looked at her was that of a bird of prey eyeing a mouse.

Henry freed her and stood up. “Well, gentlemen. I left you to further deliberations. I hope you have some sensible suggestions to make to me now.” He smiled at Jane. “Go back to Queen Anna, but…” His voice dropped. “No word of this happy encounter. You understand? We will talk more in due time. Yes, Sir Thomas? What have you to tell me?”

Jane was dismissed. She was obliged to pass Norfolk and his companions, which shouldn’t have been difficult because the gallery was so wide. But Cromwell had instantly engaged the king in earnest conversation and Henry had turned away from her. He did not see Norfolk shoot out a hand and grip her shoulder, spinning her around to look at him.

“Slut,” said Norfolk softly. Then he let her go and she was on her way again, with tears once more in her eyes.

She found the stair at the end of the gallery and ran down it, thrusting open the door at the foot and fleeing out into the rain. The side door to the queen’s lodgings was only a few yards away and she hastened to it, with mingled rain and tears almost blinding her.

Just inside the door she stopped short, leaning against the wall. She felt breathless and her heart was hammering. Never had she wished more ardently that she could be back at home, sewing with Eleanor in the parlour with its view of the brown and purple moorlands, or riding down green-shadowed Allerbrook combe.

Inside her, something seemed to have snapped. I can’t stay here. I can’t stay at this court, said Jane to herself. The door through which she had just come opened again and Peter Carew came striding in.

“Jane! I saw you running in here as if you were in a panic and, well, here you are, propped against a wall and…” He came toward her, looking at her keenly. “You’re crying. Jane, what’s amiss?”

“King Henry,” said Jane miserably. Peter looked bewildered.

“I met him in a gallery and he kissed me. And he wants to divorce Queen Anna. Did you know?”

“Most of the court knows, except for the queen herself.”

“I can’t bear it. I daren’t stay here. I’m going home. I’ll take Lisa with me. Where’s the best place to hire horses from, to start us on our way?”

“Good God, you can’t go off with only Lisa as an escort!”

“I must. After what happened in that gallery, I must! I don’t suppose I’ll be granted permission, so I’ll just go.”

“No, you won’t…no, listen! You’re right to want to get away, unless you’re prepared to end up as another concubine, in wedlock or out of it, living in luxury and the target of spite and not only from the other girls. The Duke of Norfolk wouldn’t be your friend either. I told you I’m always willing to help a young lady in distress. And I’ve always had a liking,” he added with a grin, “for doing lawless things, especially in a good cause. As it happens, I’m leaving the court myself tomorrow—with permission—to visit my mother in Devon. She’s been lonely since my father died.”

“But how…what…?”

“Listen. Let me think. Yes, I know. I’m good at getting into trouble and getting out of it as well, but there’s no need to ask for it. Here’s what you must do…”

“I’d better leave word of some sort,” Jane said as his instructions ended. “I’m part of the queen’s household. She’ll feel responsible. She might send after me! Maybe King Henry will, too!”

“King Henry,” said Peter, though he kept his voice down, “is still officially a married man, and—this is treason, of course, kindly don’t repeat it—what with putting Queen Catherine aside, beheading Queen Anne and now planning to annul his present consort, he’s getting a reputation. If he goes chasing, either personally or by proxy, after an errant maid of honour, there’ll be talk and even laughter. He won’t want that! Leave a note for the queen. Don’t mention the king. Say you were homesick. Say you’re going home with a reliable escort. That should reduce the chance of any pursuit. Can you trust your tirewoman?”

“Lisa? Yes.”

“Does she need to travel by pillion or can she ride?”

“Lisa rides very well. You won’t fail me?”

“I won’t fail you. I love an adventure,” said Peter, laughing. “Oh, and don’t worry. You will travel as my sister and I shall not treat you as anything else. I’ll bring you home unharmed, I promise.”